


Comforts of Home

by Mareel



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Established Relationship, Food, Future Fic, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 05:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mareel/pseuds/Mareel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finding warmth on a special winter night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comforts of Home

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place approximately 23 years after Season 4. Jonathan and Malcolm have a long-established relationship. It is Malcolm's voice. Written for the prompt 'soup weather'.

 

I can’t resist another spoonful – I need to be sure this tastes half as good as it smells. And it does! The warm, savoury aroma drifting from the pot of soup on the stove seems to follow me from room to room. Ginger, onions, tarragon… this is an autumnal soup. Squash, carrots, a few potatoes – the produce market featured the last crops of the season and I decided to combine them as a welcome home for Jonathan.

He’s been on Andoria again for the past several weeks. It seems his personal assistance was requested even though his term as Earth’s ambassador to Andoria ended a year ago. We spent five years there, living underground on that frozen world. Well, Jonathan did… I joined him whenever my other responsibilities allowed it. We had the services of excellent cooks, but both of us came back to Earth craving foods native to our homeworld. 

A little more pepper… now it should be good to simmer for an hour or two. I can adjust the seasoning tomorrow when I reheat it for dinner – for Jon’s first meal back on Earth. I’ve missed him more than usual this trip, though I’d not tell him so. I don’t want him to think he shouldn’t accept requests like this one from Shran just because we both aren’t free to travel. 

But part of me was hoping he’d make it home today…

 

___________________________________

 

The dogs both start to bark excitedly… odd, since I wasn’t expecting anyone. The weather would keep most of our local friends snug in their own homes tonight. Unless there is some emergency. 

But no, the _stamp, stamp, stamp_ I’m hearing is unmistakably Jonathan. On the porch. Trying to shake the snow from his boots, which were never really made for tromping through a foot or more of fresh snow. 

I wasn’t expecting him home until tomorrow at the earliest – the starship transporting him back from Andoria had been unexpectedly diverted to a small colony world out beyond Vulcan to drop off emergency medical supplies. 

And last night we had the first big snowfall of the season. It’s been a lovely long autumn, one of those seasons that remind us why we chose to build our getaway home here in Vermont after _Enterprise_ was decommissioned. Despite a heavy frost or two, the leaves were still clinging to branches on the maples edging up against our meadow. Now those limbs are heavy with snow, showing only the barest flashes of leftover colour. 

So it’s a good thing Jonathan’s shuttle was able to land over by the road to drop him off – the plows must have been busy moving snow all day. But that still left him half a mile to hike in order to get home. 

I go to meet him just as the door opens, but I’m not as fast as the dogs. Jon automatically does a leg block to keep them in for now, though they’re both more interested in greeting him than in running out into the snow. But after all these years, I’m not shy about making sure I get my chance to welcome him too. He’s already gotten his jacket unzipped and I slip my arms beneath it to embrace him, meeting his eyes and lips for a kiss that lingers on the edge between warmth and passion. 

“It’s good to be home, Malcolm! I wasn’t sure I’d get here tonight when I heard about the storm, but I told the shuttle pilot that if she didn’t want to fly it, I could give her a hand and no one would be the wiser. She decided to take that as a challenge and here I am! Damn good flying, too.”

He’s stripping off his wet clothes as we speak, and I follow him to the bedroom while he rummages for something warm and dry. I catch his glance toward the bed… it tempts me to ambush him here and now, but I remember just in time that something else is cooking. 

“I don’t know if it will be as good tonight as it would be with more cooking time, but I made soup… a gingered squash soup… if you’re hungry, love.”

Jonathan’s raised eyebrow reminds me that I’m not usually the cook here – more often than not, he is the one conjuring up meals from half-remembered recipes and whatever local produce we find at the market. I accused him once of having a hotline to Chef, but his eyes were all innocence as he denied it… mostly. 

“Sounds like it will taste good both tonight _and_ tomorrow… we’re not going anywhere, and this is definitely soup weather.” He stops midway through pulling his faded old Stanford sweatshirt over his head, and tosses it on the bed instead, reaching to pull me against him. I know the soup will wait. From the way he’s holding me, it’s clear that he’s not going to do anything of the sort.

 

___________________________________

 

Later, wrapped in Jonathan’s arms and the warm bedding, I kiss his neck and burrow closer, if that’s even possible. I can’t see his face, and his voice is muffled by my hair, but his words warm me even more than the duvet. “You didn’t think I’d forgotten, did you, Malcolm?” 

I shake my head, my cheek rubbing against his chest. “Not for a moment. But you know I’d have forgiven you if you didn’t pull every available string in order to get home for our anniversary.”

He laughs at that, and I feel it vibrate against my ear. God, I’ve missed his laughter! “I didn’t call in _that_ many favors… but I might have mentioned to Shran that I wanted to be home to celebrate twenty-five years together. And he might have insisted that we take his personal cruiser instead of the _Endeavor_. And I wanted to surprise you.”

Propping myself up on an elbow, I kiss him deeply. “Now you owe him again, love.” 

Jonathan’s murmured reply sounds something like “with pleasure.”

 


End file.
